Found: Missing Rec & Park CIP
Originally Published: February 9, 2024
Is funding unnecessarily allocated elsewhere?
Donald DeGraves, Recreation and Parks Advisory Board Member, asked Director Arthur Shepherd at their last meeting about funding used to purchase Willows Recreation Center (WRC), now the St. Mary’s Gymnastics Center. Shepherd stated funds were pulled from the Shannon Farm Capital Improvement Project (CIP), which pushed back the construction of that park with waterfront access. Curious, I researched the purchase a bit further.
The County purchased WRC last year, at a total cost of $4.702M. The majority of the funds were realigned from other Rec & Park CIP’s as follows:
Shannon Farm, RP-1905, $4.2M
Great Mills Property Master Plan, RP-2001, $100K
Central County Park, RP-2304, $320K
I looked back through the approved budgets for the last few years to learn more about each CIP. The budget book released to the public each year includes a data sheet for each CIP, with a project description, project number, funding schedule and a few other details. Shannon Farms was funded at $4.243M in FY23, so the $4.2M used for WRC decimated the budget for that project. Funding will be added back in coming years. The CIP for a Central County Park (proposed on Indian Bridge Rd) had a total of $350K allocated, of which $320K was reallocated to the WRC purchase. These two projects were easy to find in the last few budget books available online.
A data sheet for RP-2001, Great Mills Property Master Plan, was more elusive. After looking through budgets for the previous three years, I finally found the CIP listed in the FY2020 budget, which was finalized in May of 2019. In FY20, $100K was allocated to update the “master plan of a 5 acre section of a 19 acre property the County purchased in 2000 for active recreation use.” That site, adjacent to Great Mills High School, is now the future home of the YMCA. This project did not appear in the FY2018 or 2019 budgets, suggesting it was new in FY20.
Safe to assume, one would think, any CIPs part of the final approved budget would have a corresponding data sheet in the budget book released to the public. Funding was reallocated from RP-2001 toward the end of FY23 which means money was tied to this project beginning in FY20, and rolled over from FY21-23. Was it an oversight that this CIP data sheet was not included the budget for three years? Are there other projects with funding allocated but not represented in the final budget, from any department?
Rhetoric from Commissioners about flatline funding, potentially across the board, has been prevalent throughout this year’s budget process. It’s worth examining if there are other funded CIPs not captured in the last year’s final budget. If there are, the money could likely be an unnecessary placeholder for a project that’s no longer viable or could be removed.
